The Somme

[Mice!]

Watching the channel Yesterday, showing real footage and recreations, read quite a bit in papers during the anniversary but watching the artillery barrage then mines being blown over a week, then the men going over the top into machine gun fire.

 

Talking about the Victoria crosses that were awarded for various things no wonder they called it the great war, 40000 dead or missing before lunch on the first advance??

 

Beyond scary, but very interesting to watch if like me you haven't seen much on the Somme before.

[Mice!]

51 Victoria crosses awarded during the Somme, very good program Hero's of the Somme.

[yod dropper]

I'll try and have a look. My Grandfather was there (b.1898) and joined up under-age. His battalion was wiped out (Norfolks) and the remainder ended up in the Lancashire Fusiliers. He also got a lump of shrapnel in his back at some point and almost left for dead in the retreat. He finally got himself out by volunteering for service in India. More than possible those years affected things about how we were brought up. The few words I got out of him about 70 years later were apparently about all he ever said.

Edited August 31, 2017 by yod dropper

[Scully]

All Lynn Macdonalds books are well worth reading, as is 'The War the Infantry Knew'.

[getthegat]

I don't know why, but stories from the first world war, always deliver a massive emotional hit for me. It was so basic with men against men, animals and humans under unbelievable horror that today we cannot even imagine. The world needs constant reminders of how awful war is, but I guess human nature will continually place lunatics in a position to start new atrocities. I'll definitely give this a viewing and read the books recommended.

[cragman]

Watched it. Very moving. My god, those guys had it hard, and the Germans, just mowing rows and rows of our guys down. They must have thought we were crazy!

[clakk]

The mention of this place makes me well up,im from 1 of the luckiest family,s in Britain .Dad,s and mum,s grandad,s both survived this horrible day in history and came home ,mentally scarred but intact otherwise.Black Watch and Yorks n Lancs regt,s .

So many of their friend,s and relatives are still there heroe,s all

[bruno22rf]

Heroes indeed, clakk, but victims of an oppressive monarchy that drove these men in their thousands into a wall of death for nothing more than vanity - greatest crime against humanity the world has yet to see yet those in their ivory towers walked away unscathed.

[yod dropper]

Heroes indeed, clakk, but victims of an oppressive monarchy that drove these men in their thousands into a wall of death for nothing more than vanity - greatest crime against humanity the world has yet to see yet those in their ivory towers walked away unscathed.

 

Not in the UK, Parliament ran the show.

Edited September 2, 2017 by yod dropper

[cuffy]

Brave lads , made of the right stuff .

Edited September 2, 2017 by cuffy

[bruno22rf]

They may well have run the show, yod dropper, but the continual desire for Colonies and Military might by the Royal families of the time lit the fire that burst into 18 million deaths.

[yod dropper]

They may well have run the show, yod dropper, but the continual desire for Colonies and Military might by the Royal families of the time lit the fire that burst into 18 million deaths.

 

Still not in the case of the UK. Or republican France.

 

The war was just a continuation of hundreds of years of manoeuvring and fighting and often about the balance of power.

[mick miller]

I will never forget the words or actions of my grandfather, a veteran of the second world War not the first, when quizzed about his time during the war by a curious 9 year old me. Grandad was a Royal Marine, on the first wave of Normandy landings, his only words on the subject were 'listen boy, war is ****'.

 

My mother told me on demob, after arriving home, he lit a fire in the garden and burnt every shred of evidence of his service, his demob suit included and never spoke about it again in public or private.

[mick miller]

I never got the chance to ask my great grandfather about the first World War. A miraculous survivor of his small Welsh village in the Rhondda, I do still have the shell casings he whiled away his time engraving. Clearly he didn't expect it to end quite so soon as one of the dates he engraved states 1919.

 

Sadly, after a life in the mines he died drowning in the fluid from his own lungs, but I heard he was a lovely, gentle and kind man. I guess he must be one of those 'white privilege' people we hear so much about these days.

Edited September 2, 2017 by mick miller

[Dekers]

The carnage and unbelievable tactics were simply terrible.

 

My Grandfather was at Ypres and survived, he actually served as an Arms Instructor in the Second World War as well.

[Esca]

Althought not anout the Somme this book is excellent reading. They Called It Passchendaele by Lynn McDonald